1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat dissipating apparatus of an integrated circuit (IC) chip and a display module including the same. More specifically, the invention relates to a heat dissipating apparatus having a structure capable of effectively dissipating heat created by an IC chip to the outside, and a display module including the same.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Plasma display modules are flat panel displays that use a discharge gas to display images. The technology enables the manufacture of thin-profile screens, and allows for the formation of large-scale, high resolution displays with a wide viewing angle, and has thus attracted much interest recently.
Such plasma display modules have mutually-facing flat panels with discharging cells disposed between the two panels. After a discharge gas is injected into the cell, the cell is sealed. Then, a voltage is applied to electrodes traversing the discharging cell, inducing a discharge of light from the gas in the discharging cell, and the discharge gas produces ultraviolet radiation, which excites phosphor to produce visible light, thus forming an image.
Here, the voltage applied to the electrodes is controlled in response to a video signal received from the outside. An IC chip on the circuit board for driving the plasma display module generally simultaneously controls a large quantity of video signals. Accordingly, the IC chip is subject to a heavy load, and therefore emits a considerable amount of heat.
An intelligent power module (IPM) can be used as the IC chip for a plasma display module. However, when an IPM is used, more heat is generated than in an ordinary IC chip, due to the IPM's integrated circuit.
Accordingly, plasma display modules use heat sinks 60 as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, in order to dissipate heat generated by such IC chips to the outside. The heat sink 60 is usually attached using an adhesive to the rear of an IPM or other IC chip 55 disposed on a circuit board 51. In this case, the circuit board 51 is installed on a chassis 40. One example of such an installation structure includes a boss 47 formed on the chassis 40 opposite the circuit board 51, so that a screw 95 passes through a hole on the circuit board 51 to screw into the boss 47.
As shown in FIG. 2, the heat sink 60 includes a base 61 and a plurality of heat dissipating fins 65 extending from the base 61. The larger the surface area of the heat dissipating fins 65 is, the larger their heat dissipating capacity becomes. Air passages are formed between the heat dissipating fins 65. Accordingly, hot air radiated by the IC chip 55 is transmitted to the outside via the heat dissipating fins 65, rising upward along the air passages.
However, the heat sink 60 with such a structure cannot adequately dissipate the heat generated by the IC chip 55 to the outside. That is, taking the example of a 42 inch HD plasma display panel, an ordinary heat sink attached to an IPM has a respective width, length, and height of 7 cm, 10 cm, and 3 cm. In this case, if the IPM temperature is 65° C., heat of about 20 W is emitted from the IPM. However, the heat sink 60 with the dimensions above can only dissipate about 10 W of heat; and therefore, the remaining 10 W of heat is not dissipated to the outside.
The increase of the size of the heat sink 60 can be considered in order to increase the heat dissipating capacity of the heat sink 60, but it is not possible to increase its size because the structure of a plasma display module contains various elements in close proximity, whose space would be infringed by larger-sized heat sinks 60.
In order to overcome these problems, the installation of a cooling fan adjacent to the chip 55 for force-cooling the IC chip 55 can be considered. However, this entails the process of installation of cooling components other than the cooling fan to be installed on the chassis 40. Consequently, the manufacturing cost increases, and the plasma display module emits noise and vibration, due to the operation of the cooling fan.